Bill McIntoshhttp://www.billmcintosh.com
My View On Marketing, Business & LifeTue, 14 May 2019 06:18:36 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.5.17Facebook vs. Youtube: The War For Online Video Dominationhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BillMcintosh/~3/ys9vhhfU_qg/
http://www.billmcintosh.com/facebook-vs-youtube-the-war-for-online-video-domination/#respondWed, 14 Oct 2015 19:15:39 +0000http://www.billmcintosh.com/?p=12564Continue reading →]]>Facebook recently announced an all new video experience for its users. The redesign and addition of an actual video “hub” targets YouTube squarely in their sites.

Facebook already sees over 4 Billion video views per day and quickly growing. Can they overtake the dominant position Google has over the video market with YouTube?

One thing’s for sure… Marketers & advertisers have a growing opportunity to reach their prospects on Facebook in new & evolving ways.

]]>http://www.billmcintosh.com/beyond-the-like-facebook-testing-love-haha-yay-wow-sad-angry-reactions-to-posts/feed/0http://www.billmcintosh.com/beyond-the-like-facebook-testing-love-haha-yay-wow-sad-angry-reactions-to-posts/All About Twitter’s New Buy Button and How Small Businesses Can Take Advantagehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BillMcintosh/~3/YCKXDmrRWxk/
http://www.billmcintosh.com/all-about-twitters-new-buy-button-and-how-small-businesses-can-take-advantage/#respondFri, 26 Sep 2014 20:37:36 +0000http://www.billmcintosh.com/?p=12505Continue reading →]]>Twitter has been going through quite a few changes as of late, and business owners might want to start paying attention. The blue-bird-themed social networking platform recently added a buy button to some of its tweets. With this button, users can now buy right from Twitter on their mobile devices, a move that should bring Twitter much needed revenue; but how will it affect casual users, and are the terms attractive enough to bring new business owners on board? Only time will tell, but let’s take a deeper look into these new Twitter changes to see what’s up.

In order to learn the specifics of the new Twitter buy button, we should go right to the source. Group Product Manager Tarun Jain recently wrote on the official Twitter blog, “This is an early step in our building functionality into Twitter to make shopping from mobile devices convenient and easy, hopefully even fun. Users will get access to offers and merchandise they can’t get anywhere else and can act on them right in the Twitter apps for Android and iOS; sellers will gain a new way to turn the direct relationship they build with their followers into sales.”

Right now, the Twitter buy button is only available to a limited number of users; but the social networking platform plans to expand it across the board to all users and Twitter businesses before long.

Right now the buy button is considered as being in a testing phase, and only a few select vendors can use it. This consists of name brands like Burberry and Home Depot, and music artists like Eminem and Megadeth.

How the Twitter Buy Button Works

The buy button is designed to act like Amazon’s one-click button. In other words, it makes it very easy for customers to buy. This may leave you wondering about your credit card information and all your personal details. Like Amazon, Twitter promises to securely hold this information and never sell or trade it to any other Twitter businesses or buyers – you know, the standard fare from tech companies who want access to your valuable data.

After a user clicks the buy button, he or she will be taken to a product or service landing page. It’s there that the Twitter user will confirm the purchase and buy. So Amazon still has Twitter beat on one-click functionality, but an extra click really isn’t that much in the grand scheme of things. Once the sale is verified, Twitter will send the order information to the Twitter businesses in question to complete the transaction.

Will the Buy Button Be Effective?

Let’s get back to our original questions.

How will the buy button affect casual users? For them, the buy buttons will be embedded inside normal-sized tweets, so all they’ll notice is an extra image or two on their mobile screens.

Will the move be enough to bring new Twitter businesses on board? It just might. A study commissioned last year by Twitter saw that 72% of small business followers said they would be likely to purchase a product from that business. And get this: You don’t need to pay for sponsored tweets to use the new feature. That means that business owners can get started driving sales from Twitter immediately and for little to no investment. Of course, those Twitter businesses will have to wait for the feature to roll out platform-wide. It started to appear in late July, so it shouldn’t take long for you to be able to use it.

Conclusion

The buy button is an interesting move by Twitter, and one that could put the social networking platform on the map as far as revenue earned. Right now the company is struggling to make money, at least when compared to its much larger sibling Facebook, but this new feature could change all that entirely. If the company can get casual users to see Twitter as a place to get their favorite goods from the companies they follow, the buy button could indeed be ‘bought’ by everyone who uses Twitter.

Keep looking out for Twitter’s buy button to roll out to your profile soon. Until then, I would love to know what you think about the buy button and whether or not you’ll be using it for your own business purposes when the roll-out is complete.

Do you ‘buy’ Twitter’s new buy button? Let’s talk about it in the comments section below.

]]>http://www.billmcintosh.com/all-about-twitters-new-buy-button-and-how-small-businesses-can-take-advantage/feed/0http://www.billmcintosh.com/all-about-twitters-new-buy-button-and-how-small-businesses-can-take-advantage/Facebook Ads and Marketing Todayhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BillMcintosh/~3/Aq_GBk6rQiQ/
http://www.billmcintosh.com/facebook-ads-and-marketing-today/#respondWed, 17 Sep 2014 22:17:09 +0000http://www.billmcintosh.com/?p=12495Continue reading →]]>If your goal is to reach out to your customers wherever they happen to be, one of the best ways is to do it is on Facebook. Free Facebook marketing just doesn’t cut it anymore, however. In the last 12 months, the social platform has been decreasing its organic reach with as few as 2.71% of fans seeing your updates in their newsfeeds. The reason is that Facebook has been pushing its ad network as a way for your business to get noticed and found by your audience.

Do Facebook ads work? Let’s find out.

The Facts About Facebook Ads

With 1.32 billion active users, Facebook definitely has a varied pool of prospects for you to target. And out of the 30 million small businesses with a page on Facebook, there are 1.5 million advertisers; and that number is growing every day.

The reason there are so many advertisers is because Facebook ads pay. In fact, Facebook’s ad revenue for the quarter ending June 30th totaled $2.91 billion, which is a whopping 61% over the $1.8 billion that was reported in June of last year.

What made all the difference? It’s probably sitting next to you on your desk, resting in your pocket or purse, or it’s somewhere near a plug outlet charging. We’re referring to, of course, your smartphone. Mobile devices (including tablets and – soon – wearables) now accounts for 62% of Facebook’s advertising revenue. This is easy to understand when you consider that most regular users of Facebook check their profiles at least once per day, and most do so on their mobile devices.

So by advertising on Facebook, you’ll not only get your ads placed in front of targeted prospects, but you’ll be able to follow those prospects around, even while they’re on the go.

Facebook Marketing Tips to Advertise Like a Pro

Use a Small Budget and Ramp It Up Slowly: The Facebook ad platform makes it easy to get started with very little money. In fact, many advertisers stick to a budget of around $5 per day, which is about what the average loyal Starbucks customer spends on coffee. Then, when you start seeing results from your ads, you can put the profits that you earn right back into your ads, improving your ad click-through rates and sales steadily over time.

Don’t be Salesy: The best way to write your ads on Facebook is as if you are recommending your product or service to a good friend. Remember, Facebook is – first and foremost – a social networking platform. Be social and draw customers in by appealing to their wants and desires. For example, don’t say, “Buy these glasses now!” Instead, act like you’re talking to a good friend and say, “Want to look good AND wear glasses? Now you can.” Just appealing to their likes and dislikes, you can entice more clicks, and ultimately earn more sales from your growing Facebook marketing ad audience.

No Click Bait: Facebook considers click-bait to be headlines and photos that only give a hint as to the content you’re advertising in order to entice more click-through. For example, you might show a photo of a well dressed woman with her face blacked out. Your headline might then read, “You’ll never guess which actress has an eating disorder.” Facebook doesn’t like this kind of trickery. Instead, show the actress’s face and entice clicks with a good headline like, “This actress has an eating disorder. Here’s how she’s going to overcome it.”

Let Prospects Know What They’re Getting: Another way to think of the above is to give prospects exactly what they expect. The images you use in your ads, text and all other elements must give your prospects an accurate representation of where they’ll be taken and what they’ll be exposed to once they commit to a click-through. Do not trick your audience, or your audience may think twice about clicking your Facebook ads in the future.

Promote Your Business Page Only: Leave the heavy promotion for your actual Facebook business page. Just as you are advised to do with your finances, when it comes to Facebook ads, it’s best to keep business and pleasure separate.

Be Mobile Friendly: Don’t forget to use Facebook’s mobile targeting capabilities, but don’t only focus on mobile device users…

Use Cross-Channel Reporting to Test and Tweak: Facebook recently rolled out its cross-channel reporting platform, which means that you’ll be able to identify where and how people are seeing and reacting to your Facebook ads. Use this information to discover where your advertising efforts are most effective and where you can improve your efforts to earn an even higher return on your investment.

The bottom line is this: if you’re not investing in Facebook marketing, you’re not going to ‘Like’ the results you get from your current marketing campaign. Add Facebook ads to the mix, on the other hand, and you’ll be able to watch your numbers – and revenue – grow.

]]>http://www.billmcintosh.com/facebook-ads-and-marketing-today/feed/0http://www.billmcintosh.com/facebook-ads-and-marketing-today/Powerful Online Marketing Tips for Summerhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BillMcintosh/~3/XoDJ6fHf9Oc/
http://www.billmcintosh.com/powerful-online-marketing-tips-for-summer/#respondWed, 09 Jul 2014 23:17:12 +0000http://www.billmcintosh.com/?p=12482Continue reading →]]>Summer is a great time to improve your online marketing efforts. As people go on vacation, go to the beach and do other summer fun stuff, they’ll probably be taking to their smartphones and mobile devices to seek directions, read online reviews and make purchases, such as beach toys, sunscreen and whatever else may tickle their fancy. Your job is to capture some of that increased traffic so that you can earn new leads, make more sales and boost your bottom line one new customer at a time. Here are some powerful online marketing tips that you can put into place right now to get things ‘heating up’ while summer rolls on.

Copy, Borrow and Outright Steal

One of the best online marketing tips you will ever hear is to copy, borrow and outright steal from your competitors. The best artists steal, it’s been said, and you are encouraged to do the same if you want these summer marketing tips to work for you.

Now, to copy, borrow and steal does not mean to plagiarize (ref.: https://copyleaks.com/education/plagiarism-checker-for-schools). Rather, it means to glean what you can from the competition so that you can take the elements you approve of and tweak them to make them your own. For example, if you love your biggest competitor’s web copy, you can take the general idea and rewrite it in your own words (or you can have a copywriter do it for you). Don’t just pay attention to one competitor, however. Cyber stalk all of them for best results, and make their content your own by adding your own personal touches.

Think Like Your Ideal Target Customer

Another one of those great online marketing tips that you’re likely to never forget is to step out of your shoes and into the footwear of your ideal customer. Picture the one person you imagine would buy from you straight away if given the chance and think like that person. What are his/her motivations? What makes him/her tick?

For example, if through your market research you figure out that your ideal customer is a teenage girl around 17 or 18 years old, imagine that you are her and that you are looking at your online marketing campaign from her perspective. See the colors you’ve chosen through her eyes and consume your content just as she would. Populate your campaign with videos she might like to see and use language she would respond to. This is how you can determine if your online marketing efforts are successful. This exercise can also let you know what you may need to tweak to make your campaign even more effective.

To get an idea of the kinds of things your audience will be sure to react to, here are a few summer marketing tips you can use.

Social Media

Facebook has a new Graph Search function that will allow you to easily locate your target customers. Study their social media profiles, find out what kinds of problems they are facing and then try to solve those problems with your overall online marketing campaign. Answer their questions with your web copy and provide tutorials in the form of videos and other media. Don’t just use Facebook, however. That is only one aspect of social media that you are encouraged to seek out if you want these online marketing tips to be especially effective.

Check out the most popular forums in your niche, also. Pay special attention to the most popular posts and find out what your target audience is discussing with their like-minded peers. Also search through Twitter, Pinterest and any other social networks you happen to be using with your online marketing campaign.

As you go through the social profiles of your target audience and as you peruse the most popular forums of today, start making a list of all the most interesting tidbits you find, such as the most frequently asked questions, top problems and any summer marketing tips you may find. All of this information can then be used to make your online marketing campaign even better than it already is.

You don’t have to get everything perfect this summer. Just keep working and constantly improving and soon you’ll have a well-targeted online marketing campaign that always succeeds at delivering the goods. The goods, in this case, indicates cold hard cash. By copying, borrowing and stealing from your competitors, putting yourself in the shoes of your ideal customer and by conducting extensive research through the use of social media, this summer should become a very hot one for your organization. You now have several summer marketing tips to make that happen.

]]>http://www.billmcintosh.com/powerful-online-marketing-tips-for-summer/feed/0http://www.billmcintosh.com/powerful-online-marketing-tips-for-summer/How to Use Pinterest to Stay Connected This Summerhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BillMcintosh/~3/fPoLppvbYW8/
http://www.billmcintosh.com/how-to-use-pinterest-to-stay-connected-this-summer/#respondFri, 30 May 2014 23:42:38 +0000http://www.billmcintosh.com/?p=12475Continue reading →]]>Are you desperately hoping for a change of scenery this summer? You’re not alone. As the weather steadily grows warmer, more and more people will be traveling, taking to the beach and generally leaving their old lives behind; if only for a few hours, days or weeks. If you plan to do your own traveling this summer and you want to stay in touch with your audience, why not start with Pinterest?

Before we get to various Pinterest tips that can keep your audience riveted while you travel (or while they do), it’s important to explain why this particular social network is exploding in popularity.

Why Pinterest?

A few years ago, people would’ve advised you that email was the best way to keep in contact with your marketing audience. Not today. While most people may check their email on a daily basis, the engagement rates just aren’t where they were back when email marketing was in its heyday. Today, you would be much better served taking to social media, more specifically Pinterest.

Pinterest is a visually-focused social network. While Twitter relies on Tweets and Facebook relies on posts, Pinterest users Pin the content they like the best. They can then share that content with others. Instead of Pins consisting of mere words or various types of media (including sound bites), Pinterest content is all visual. Stunning images and engaging videos are all you’ll find at Pinterest and that is precisely why the social network’s audience is growing so massively.

Only the Best-of-the-Best Visuals Will Do

If you hope to use these Pinterest tips for summer to keep in touch with your audience, you should pledge yourself to only use the best and clearest images and videos to pin to your virtual cork board. The idea is to entice every person who visits your board to stop and stay awhile as they peruse each item you leave.

Now use these Pinterest tips to ramp up your engagement with your audience and remain connected as you make the most of this year’s summer season.

Photo Journal

If you plan to get away this summer, why not keep your audience in the loop with a series of eye-popping photos to chronicle your journey? You don’t need to travel to somewhere exotic to take photos that Pinterest users will enjoy. Even if you plan to travel to the next town over, you can take killer photos. You just have to keep your eye out for those out-of-the-box photo opportunities.

Before and Afters

Many people choose the summer months to completely transform themselves. You may want to lose weight, learn a new language, become proficient in a martial art or you might want to finally learn how to dance. You may even decide to have plastic surgery. Whatever the change is, keep track of your progress via photos or video – or both – and keep your audience up-to-date every step of the way.

Video Updates

Whether you pledge to read 100 books this summer, visit every Olive Garden from East Coast to West, or you finally plan to finish that novel that’s been on the backburner for years, keep your Pinterest audience in the loop with fresh videos filmed at least once per week. Nothing engages like video and, when done properly, video can lend a certain legitimacy to you and your cause, a fact TV and movie executives have known for years.

Change Things Up

It should be noted that these Pinterest tips for summer can all be used at the same time, and you are encouraged to use your imagination, as well as your knowledge of your audience, to provide all of your Pinterest followers with new and innovative pins that they will love looking through.

Don’t just pin a bunch of self-taken videos or before and after pics depicting your weight loss journey. Instead, mix it up and keep your audience on its toes. That will make your board unpredictable and that can keep your followers consistently coming back for more, since they’ll always find themselves wondering what you’re about to pin next.

Don’t Forget to Re-Pin

As with all other social networks, these Pinterest tips for summer will be best served as a combination of yours and other people’s pins. Pinning someone else’s pin on your board is called a Repin. With repins, you are acknowledging other Pinterest users and you’re sharing some of the best content with your loyal followers. Everyone wins, since you will also experience the added engagement.

Conclusion

Now you have several ways to stay connected with your loyal followers on Pinterest. Yet there is one more benefit to these tips we have yet to discuss. Traveling or showing how much you have changed on Pinterest might just inspire some of your audience members to travel or change. That’s the true power of these Pinterest tips for summer. By filling your board with content that your audience appreciates, you can succeed at making Pinterest a better place to be. You can also potentially improve the lives of your followers, which is always a good thing.

]]>http://www.billmcintosh.com/how-to-use-pinterest-to-stay-connected-this-summer/feed/0http://www.billmcintosh.com/how-to-use-pinterest-to-stay-connected-this-summer/Local and Mobile Marketing Should Go Hand in Handhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BillMcintosh/~3/W-biqxAlXXs/
http://www.billmcintosh.com/local-and-mobile-marketing-should-go-hand-in-hand/#respondFri, 09 May 2014 22:19:46 +0000http://www.billmcintosh.com/?p=12457Continue reading →]]>Businesses that rely on local customers and clients must treat online marketing a tad differently than all the other businesses out there. For example, they’re not marketing on Facebook to clients in Cairo and California. Likewise, they’re not just tweeting to customers in California and New York. Instead, these local marketing businesses are focusing solely on customers that reside in Burbank, California; the ones that work in Kalamazoo, Michigan; and they are looking to gain access only to only those who live and work in Wichita Falls, Texas. Not only must local marketing be treated differently, but local mobile marketing must be considered, as well. Here are the various local and mobile marketing techniques that are rocking the digital world as we speak. Put one or more of them to work in your own business to cause the phone to ring, your email inbox to fill up and to deliver more warm bodies through your business door.

How Local Mobile Marketing is Different

Local mobile marketing differs in a big way from traditional search engine optimization, or SEO. With regular SEO, you are trying to target people who may be using computers or mobile devices; basically, you are looking to draw the attention of anyone with an online connection. Local marketing is different.

With local marketing, you are targeting people in a specific city, town, state or suburb. This means that you need to conduct your local marketing with that in mind. For example, where you might use the keyword ‘Bass Fish Bait’ to sell tackle to a mass audience, you might use the keyword ‘Vermont Bass Fish Bait’ or even ‘Montpelier Bass Fish Bait’ if you wanted to be more specific.

Performing a Local Marketing Makeover

You will soon learn how to conduct a local mobile marketing makeover of your online presence, but for right now focus on using as many of those above-mentioned geographical keywords as possible to draw more search engine traffic your way. Not only are more searchers using geography in their search engine queries – for example, they may look for a dentist in Atlanta – but more search engines are automatically sensing the location of their users to deliver local marketing results.

Google, for example, will use your IP or the GPS functionality of your mobile device to deliver local results. You can still ensure that local marketing prospects and customers will be notified of your online presence by including all the geo-keywords that can be naturally-inserted into your content marketing strategy.

Use these keywords on your website pages, in your blogs, on social media profiles and use them when blasting press releases far and wide to urge prospects to call your phone number, email or walk on in.

Local Mobile Marketing

To target mobile marketing prospects and customers, think about where those individuals mostly hang out when using their mobile devices. Your local mobile marketing target market might find themselves logging into Facebook at least once per day. Or you might find that your target market frequently visits Yelp to read the online reviews written about the local businesses in town. Your job is to frequent those places and to make your online presence more prominent in those locations.

For example, you will want to fill your social profiles with geo-keywords and you will also want to reach out to local prospects and customers who exhibit interest in your field. You should also make your presence available on Internet review sites, online forums and in blog comment sections. Write interesting, relevant information, provide helpful tips and help your prospects and customers avoid costly mistakes instead of forcing them to experience those inevitable mistakes on their own.

When it comes to online reviews, urge your best clients and customers to leave their thoughts on Yelp, Google+ Business, Bing Local, Yahoo Local and anywhere else their thoughts can be submitted. The more online reviews you gather online, the bigger your local mobile marketing presence will become.

The goal is to have your business show up the moment your local prospects and customers search for whatever they need online; preferably when using their mobile devices. As mobile devices become more popular and as wearable mobile devices gain more acceptance, expect local mobile marketing to become the norm for small and medium sized businesses, as well as for corporations alike. It seems that everyone is online these days and you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who’s not using at least some type of mobile device. If you want to remain ahead of the curve and you want more local customers to select you over the competition, put these local marketing tips and all of this advice to good use.

]]>http://www.billmcintosh.com/local-and-mobile-marketing-should-go-hand-in-hand/feed/0http://www.billmcintosh.com/local-and-mobile-marketing-should-go-hand-in-hand/Revamp Your Online Marketing Campaign for Summerhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BillMcintosh/~3/3_Tnrr_-NaU/
http://www.billmcintosh.com/revamp-your-online-marketing-campaign-for-summer/#respondTue, 29 Apr 2014 21:47:33 +0000http://www.billmcintosh.com/?p=12456Continue reading →]]>Summer is typically the time when people like to take their vacations, but you shouldn’t take a vacation from your online marketing campaign if you want to be successful. This is an excellent time to become involved with online marketing, and the summertime breeze may just put your customers in the mood to buy. Here are a few tips that should help you summer-ize your online marketing campaign to deliver more engagement and sales before fall time rolls around.

Why Summer is Perfect for Tweaking Online Marketing

Summertime is when the kids get out of school for a few months and many business owners also get to relax. If you find yourself taking any sort of break, why not break out your online marketing campaign to complete a few tweaks?

It only takes an hour here and an hour there to make big changes to your online marketing campaign, and the results may astound you.

Cooler Colors

One way you can make your online marketing summerific is to use cooler colors on all your designs. From website themes to email templates to the covers of your lead generation reports; use blues, greens and other cool colors that people typically associate with summer. Not only will those colors relax your visitors and readers, but the cooler colors are also statistically proven to keep people on the page longer, thus leading to further engagement and possibly higher conversions and sales.

Use Visualization

Since people typically associate summer with breaks and vacations, why not help people whisk their minds away with language that helps them visualize what you want them to? For example, if you are renting cars, you might want to tell a story that helps the reader visualize himself driving cross-country without a care in the world. Or a site selling headphones might help readers picture themselves sitting on a park bench, watching their kids play, listening to their favorite music, drowning out the world and yet reveling in it at the same time.

Use your imagination and make your online marketing campaign really stand out by helping your audience get away for summer, even if they can’t in real life.

Images, Photos and Videos

One way you can help your audience get away for summer is to use eye-catching images, photos that show people, places and things at their very best; as well as videos. Nothing engages quite like video and YouTube makes it simple to get your videos online for all your audience to see. If your online marketing campaign is free of or low on images, photos and videos; this summer is the perfect time to stock up. Just this simple tip can double or triple the results you’re seeing right now. If you’re not experiencing results at all, you may succeed in getting the ball rolling just by posing for the camera.

New Technologies and Techniques

The hardest part about online marketing is keeping on top of all the latest tech and tips to emerge from the best and brightest in the industry. Your job, if you hope to keep your online marketing campaign optimized and constantly churning out results, is to read and learn as much as you can. Watch YouTube videos from your industry, go to that ancient place called the library and check out any books you can find on Internet marketing and the current state of the industry; and whatever you do, make sure you read the top blogs from all the luminaries in the field.

Many of the latest tools are free or low cost, but you must know how to use them. This summer is an ideal time to take your industry-related education to the next level. Consider it continuing education. You can do it all on your own or you can find a class or some online courses to take. As long as you learn something new and you’re able to supercharge your online marketing campaign with the information you find, you’ll have spent your time and energy wisely.

Change Your Offer

If you’re not getting the results you want from your online marketing efforts and you’ve already tweaked your campaign until you were blue in the face, and you’re still not experiencing the results you want, it’s time to get serious about things. It may be that your offer isn’t strong enough to entice your audience to act. You might consider changing your offer altogether or tweaking it, also, such as bundling it with another offer or offering it at a lower or much higher price point. It never hurts to try and you never know when you’ll hit that sweet spot offer that your audience simply loves to buy.

If you don’t do anything else this summer, at least look at your online marketing campaign through the eyes of your typical customer. Determine if your message is effective, if your colors truly speak to you and see if your offer makes you want to take out your credit card and start typing.

If you don’t feel that your online marketing campaign truly ‘brings it’ or if you see any areas lacking, this summer is the time to change things up. As the weather warms up and the clothes become skimpier, it’s time to make your online marketing a whole lot deadlier to the competition. You now have several ideas to help you do just that.

]]>http://www.billmcintosh.com/revamp-your-online-marketing-campaign-for-summer/feed/0http://www.billmcintosh.com/revamp-your-online-marketing-campaign-for-summer/AdWords Columns Now Includes Keyword Bid Simulator Estimateshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BillMcintosh/~3/kYEw0S8F9sA/
http://www.billmcintosh.com/adwords-columns-now-includes-keyword-bid-simulator-estimates/#respondWed, 09 Apr 2014 17:47:32 +0000http://www.billmcintosh.com/?p=12455Continue reading →]]>The Google Adwords platform is by far, hands-down the best pay-per-click advertising platform available online. With the proper budget, a few best practices and the most strategic keyword bids, your ads will show up for all relevant search engine users. Just think of the possibilities. Consider the average person searching Google with one of your keyword terms and then imagine one of your ads showing up first and foremost on that person’s screen. Picture the average person who sees your ads clicking-through to every landing page you create, and then ultimately subscribing, buying or taking whatever calls-to-action you tell them to take. All of this is possible with the Adwords platform, and now with the new Keyword Bid Simulator, finding success on Adwords is even easier.

Keyword Bid Simulator – What’s the Big Whup?

The keyword bid simulator takes all the guesswork out of bidding for top keywords, which is the biggest obstacle most Google Adwords users face. To find the most success with Google Ads, you need to not only find the best keywords, but you need to put the proper budget behind those keywords if you hope for them to be effective.

See, Google Keywords each have a price associated to them. This price is identified as the Google Adwords Keyword cost-per-click. Your job is to bid as much as possible for each keyword that you hope to optimize for so that you can show up first for all potential search engine users. At least you’ll show up for search users who happen to search for relevant keyword terms.

Before the Keyword Bid Simulator came into effect, Google Adwords users would have to come up with keyword bid amounts all on their own. It was a crap-shoot at best and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. Now that you have a systemized way to come up with your bids, your Google Ads will be even more likely to succeed.

The Keyword Bid Simulator takes the Google Keywords you feed it and then provides you with – estimated – keyword bid amounts. Yes, you read that right. The bids are estimated, but receiving a roundabout number is far better than coming up with that number off the top of your head; especially when you know that the number originated from actual Google Ads that are optimization for that very same keyword term.

With the proper keyword Adwords bids under your belt, you will receive more impressions, far more click-throughs and your organization will experience loads more sales and loyal customer communications. Once you know exactly what to bid, the Google Adwords platform will become your professional playground. Yes, I am implying that getting the proper Google Keyword bids will make the Adwords platform seem like child’s play. Once you know the rules – and the bids to apply to the keywords you are optimizing for – getting the results you crave will become a sure possibility and you will retain complete control over all of your best-performing Google ad campaigns.

Where to Go From Here

To use the Google Keyword Bid Simulator, you will need a set of keywords that potential clients or customers may type into Google to find your organization – and its products and services. If you are clueless on the types of keywords to optimize for, Adwords has an estimator tool for that, too.

First, you will need to log-in to your Google Adwords account and select Tools in the menu bar at the top. You will notice a keyword estimator tool, and this is where you will find these amazing keyword data tools. You can find out which keywords you should target, when you should target them, which keywords should be combined for best results and, most importantly, you will discover just how much to bid for the audience you have in mind.

With the new Keyword Bid Estimator, and all the other capabilities that the Google Adwords tool offers you, your organization will be inundated with phone calls, emails and plain, old walk-ins – even if you work at a home-based business.

Yes, people may become so excited about your business that they surprise you as you are enjoying your morning coffee, sitting in your underwear, ready to tackle the day’s to-do list. With Google Adwords and the excitement that can build from each keyword you optimize for, something as embarrassing as that is bound to happen.

The lesson is to always be dressed, to prepare your inbox for a flood of new emails and to man the phones to prepare for all of those Google Adwords-driven leads to come flowing in. You may even want to hire a virtual assistant, you are bound to be that busy.

]]>http://www.billmcintosh.com/adwords-columns-now-includes-keyword-bid-simulator-estimates/feed/0http://www.billmcintosh.com/adwords-columns-now-includes-keyword-bid-simulator-estimates/AdSense Direct is What’s New with Googlehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BillMcintosh/~3/3g6J-eODlU4/
http://www.billmcintosh.com/adsense-direct-is-whats-new-with-google/#respondMon, 31 Mar 2014 17:46:39 +0000http://www.billmcintosh.com/?p=12433Continue reading →]]>Google recently announced a brand new option for people who wish to sell advertising on their websites and blogs. If you have a website and/or blog that is experiencing tons of traffic and attention daily, you might have a good bargaining chip that you can use to command high rates for the virtual real estate that is represented by your site and blog sidebars. With really engaging sites, advertisers might even come to you for the purposes of advertising. If you were to sell this advertising space on your own, you would have to deal with contracts, payment terms and you would have to ensure that you were getting paid regularly. Now, Google is offering website and blog owners the chance to sell valuable virtual real estate on their digital creations using the Adsense platform. Enter Adsense Direct. If you haven’t heard about Adsense Direct, prepare to get really excited; especially if you have a popular site or blog and you really, really like money.

What is Adsense Direct?
Adsense Direct works off of the current Google Adsense platform. Adsense, as you know, allows you to showcase relevant ads on your sites and blogs. You simply install the code, provide the content and Google does all the rest. You don’t have to touch a thing and you can potentially make money with every impression or click the ads earn.

Google Adsense Direct works a bit differently. Instead of showing just any relevant ads, you can specify certain advertisers, just as you would if you were selling space on your site or blog all on your own. Let’s say, for example, that your website is about electricity services and that your local electricity provider has contacted you for the purposes of showcasing their ads on your website’s sidebar. Instead of drawing up contracts, figuring out payment terms and all that jazz, Google will do it all for you using Adsense Direct.

Google takes about 15-18% of the revenue that the ads earn and you get the rest, and that advertiser’s ads will show up on your site or blog where you have placed your Google Adsense code. If the advertisers specifies that he or she only wants the ads to run at certain times, your blog or site traffic audience won’t notice a switch at all. The advertiser’s ads will run and then they will be switched with regular Google Adsense ads at the appropriate time. This allows you to still make money, even though the advertiser’s ads are no longer showing for your readers.

Increase Revenue and Draw More Advertisers In
There are many advantages to the Google Adsense Direct platform. For one, you don’t have to worry about selling your own advertising services; though you are encouraged to advertise on your site and blog that you are part of the Adsense Direct system. This is just in case any advertisers happen to peruse your site or blog and decide that they want a piece of your traffic action.

Another prime benefit is that you are only advertising with Google Ads, which ensures that they will be seen and trusted by your frenzied audience. With Google being at the top of its digital game, using Google Adsense and Adsense Direct Google Ads are terrific ways to funnel some of the truck-loads of money that the search giant earns on a daily basis in your direction.

Potential Drawbacks
Of course, if you take to the Internet and conduct a search for Google Adsense Direct, you will notice some bad PR for the search giant being spread around. Many webmasters aren’t happy with the 15-18% cut that Google takes off the top of your Google Ads revenue. Still, consider what would happen if you were to sell advertising all on your own. Think about how complicated the process would be. Not only that, but you would be at a major disadvantage if your website or blog isn’t that well known.

All in all, that nominal cut off the top of your Adsense revenue isn’t that much and Google is doing a lot of the work for you, which should be more than enough reason to pay the search giant what it feels it deserves. When you consider that your ads will show up without fail, that you always have more opportunities to make even more Adsense Direct sales and the fact that your paycheck always comes in on time whenever you do have money coming to you, Google provides a pretty good service and should be paid in kind.

Whether you agree with the nominal fee or not, give the Google Adsense Direct platform a chance and see what you think. Chances are you will fall in love, especially when your very first lucrative payment arrives.